Game day 2

With that late victory in our first game, we entertained promotion favourites Benfica a Castelo Branco in my first home game as a manager.

During the afternoon before the game, I’m approached by Rodrigo Boaventurea, the clubs director of football and first team coach Ruben Parraga

Rodrigo says something in Portugesue, Ruben translates

‘We’ve got the signing over the line boss, the young left winger Vladislav Drogunov has joined from Desportivo das Aves’

‘Great stuff, thank you Ruben, will he be here before the Benfica game?’

‘Unfortunately not Vince, he’s driving down from Vila das Aves so won’t make it for today’s game’

‘Not to worry. We best get get prepared for the game tomorrow’ I say as we head off towards the training pitch.

Home game v.s Benfica a Castelo Branco

As I get out of the taxi and head towards the stadium, I’m greeted by a crowd of people, some wearing our home shirt and the majority cheering and waving at me.

I struggle to make it through the crowd of people as they’re all trying to get photos and autographs with me, they’re all speaking in Portuguese and whilst this is nice to get this kind of attention, I have literally no idea what they’re saying

‘Bora Oleiros’

‘Boa sorte Oleiros’

‘Nunca desista’

These are all things I hear them saying, but I’ve no clue what they mean. I smile and wave as eventually I get to the entrance of the ground and make my way to the training room

‘Ruben, tell the team that despite some defensive wobbles in the second half in the last game, we’re setting up exactly the same as last time, except this time we’re going to go out and attack’

‘But Vince, Benfica are a top team and they’ll tear us apart’ Ruben replies

‘Not if we control the game. The way I see it if we’re going to get anything out of this game we’ve got to put them on the back foot, take it to them they won’t be expecting it’

‘Okay you’re the boss’

As I lead the team out at Estadio Municipal de Oleiros for the first time, there’s not many fans here, at first glance I’d say a couple of hundred at a push. I can’t deny it I was expecting more, but this is a small town with a small population, let’s hope I can get more people in this stadium watching the team.

Things didn’t get off to a good start as after 8 minutes we were 1 down. They had the ball whipped in from the wing and it was a good header that got their goal, but I felt we could’ve been a bit more confident in defence. From then on though we dominated the game. We had a number of half chances but right on half time the ball was passed around their area before Gomes, who made a couple of mistakes in the last game managed to bury the ball home eventually.

From the restart we took the lead from a well worked corner routine. The ball came in and Manuel found his header go straight into the net. From then on we didn’t sit back and took it to Benfica. We increased our lead when Jackson buried a close range shot in before adding his second and our fourth by beating 3 players before striking the ball home. They did pull 1 back late on but the game was dead and buried by that point.

After the game I’m sitting with Ruben in the dressing room, the players have all left for the day after a good result

‘Told ya’ I said

‘Told me what?’ Ruben replied

‘Told you if we took it to them they’d crumble, and they did’

‘Okay I will admit you got it right today, but don’t get ahead of yourself boss’ he says with a smirk on his face

‘Oh I won’t pal, but it’s been a great start 2 wins from 2 and if we can keep this performance up we won’t have to worry about relegation from this division’

Just as we get up to leave 1 of the press room attendants walks up to Ruben and speaks in Portuguese

He turns to me and says ‘The new lad just arrived, he needs to get registered to play in the next game, the office will see to it. Do you want to go greet Drogunov, or shall I?’

‘Well he speaks English so I’ll go’

I meet him at the entrance to the stadium ‘Afternoon Vlad, how was your journey?’

‘Erm, hi again Vince, I mean boss’ he says in a very nervous way. ‘The drive was okay. Do I need to get to training or anything today?’

‘No son, get yourself settled and unpacked, and meet me at training tomorrow. Don’t know if you saw but we won 4-2 this afternoon’

‘Oh that’s good, but does that mean I won’t be in the team for the next game?’

‘Not at all, I signed you for the first team and that is exactly where you’ll be. See you in the morning’

Rounding out my first month as a football manager is another away game, and another victory. This time we won 1-0 away to Carapinheirense with new signing Vladislav Drogunov impressing by getting the only goal early on in the game. After the goal it wasn’t quite end to end but there were some nervy moments where we could’ve conceded the equaliser, but we held on for our third win in 3 games.

That brings an end to my first month as a manager, and I am currently rocking a 100% record. It’s not going to be plain sailing all season, but if we can get some more points on board early on we may just have enough to keep us in the league.